Indeed, the hint of something solemn behind his words made it difficult for me to keep up the conversation, and the pause that presently came I filled in with some word of questioning surprise, which yet, I think, was chiefly in concurrence. I was aware of some big belief in him, some enveloping emotion that escaped my grasp. Yet, though I did not understand, his great mood swept me.... His voice lowered, then, as he went on to mention temples, tombs and deities, details of his own discoveries and of their effect upon him, but to this I listened with half an ear, because in the unusual language he had first made use of I detected this other thing that stirred my curiosity more--stirred it uncomfortably. ‘Then the spell,’ I asked, remembering the effect of Egypt upon myself two years before, ‘has worked upon you as upon most others, only with greater power?’ He looked hard at me a moment, signs of trouble showing themselves faintly in his rugged, interesting face. I think he wanted to say more than he could bring himself to confess. He hesitated. ‘I’m only glad,’ he replied after a pause, ‘it didn’t get hold of me earlier in life. It would have absorbed me. I should have lost all other interests. Now,’--that curious look of helplessness, of asking sympathy, flitted like a shadow through his eyes--‘now that I’m on the decline ... it matters less.’ On the decline! I cannot imagine by what blundering I missed this chance he never offered again; somehow or other the singular phrase passed unnoticed at the moment, and only came upon me with its full significance later when it was too awkward to refer to it. He tested my readiness to help, to sympathise, to share his inner life. I missed the clue. For, at the moment, a more practical consideration interested me in his language. Being of those who regretted that he had not excelled by devoting his powers to a single object, I shrugged my shoulders. He caught my meaning instantly. Oh, he was glad to talk. He felt the possibility of my sympathy underneath, I think. ‘No, no, you take me wrongly there,’ he said with gravity. ‘What I mean--and I ought to know if any one does!--is that while most countries give, others take away. Egypt changes you. No one can live here and remain exactly what he was before.’ This puzzled me. It startled, too, again. His manner was so earnest. ‘And Egypt, you mean, is one of the countries that take away?’ I asked. The strange idea unsettled my thoughts a little.